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The evening times. August 5, 1895, Image 1

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The Evening Times (Washington [D.C.]) 1895-1902

The Evening Times first appeared on August 5, 1895 as an addition to the Morning Times, which had begun publication the previous year. Within a few years, this late afternoon edition competed with the Evening Star as the largest daily in the capital city, both of them recording a circulation of over 40,000. The politically Democratic Evening Times covered local stories as well as foreign news culled from wire services. It often featured a society or crime article on the front page and included a daily weather map, sports, gossip, women's news, and news of sundry federal agencies and the activities of civil servants. Beginning in 1901 the newspaper also published fiction, Sunday comics, and true adventure stories. That year, advertising moved to the forefront, often appearing prominently on the front page.

The newspaper claimed to have the timeliest coverage of national elections and foreign news reports. Local issues dominate the news beyond the first page, but sports and business news were also featured. The Times reported heavily on the changing landscape in Washington at the turn of the twentieth century, with frequent stories on city planning and urbanization activities, the development of the national Mall, alley and tenement reform, sanitary improvements, road building and repairs.

C. G. Conn sold the morning and evening editions in late 1896 to Washington Post founder Stilson Hutchins (1830-1912). Frank A. Munsey (1854-1925), known for his consolidation practices and within the newspaper business as the destroyer of the dailies, owned the paper 1901-1917 and ran the paper from the Munsey Building built in 1905. Under his ownership the morning edition ceased November 29, 1902 and the paper (published only in the evening and Sunday) became the politically-independent Washington Times (not to be confused with the present-day paper of the same title).

William Randolph Hearst gained control of the Washington Times in 1917 through his agent Arthur Brisbane. Five years later Hearst also took over the Washington Herald. A combined Sunday edition of both papers was published as the Washington Times-Herald in 1922 and 1923, and then a combined Sunday edition was published as the Washington Herald until 1937. A combined daily and Sunday edition, called the Washington Times-Herald, began publication February 1, 1939. That paper merged with the Post in 1954.